Category Archives: Animals

‘My land is now owned by lions’: Maasai farmers offer Kenya’s wildlife a lifeline

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Kenya has lost 70% of its wildlife in 30 years, but conservancy schemes could halt the decline – and benefit local communities

Parsaloi Kupai’s home, situated on the edge of Ol Kinyei conservancy near the Maasai Mara game reserve, is no different from any other Maasai homestead – oval-shaped huts with an almost flat roof and walls plastered with a mixture of water, mud and cow dung. At the centre of the homestead is a cattle boma, an enclosure where his livestock spends the night, safe from the many predators that roam the area.

Kupai, 47, and his two wives chose to live here after they surrendered 69 hectares (170 acres) of land to the 7,500-hectare conservancy. He is among 240 landowners who gave up their highly valued grazing land for the project.

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‘Horror scene’ in Canada after 38 dead puppies found on plane

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Bodies of French bulldogs were among about 500 dogs discovered on flight from Ukraine at Toronto airport

Canada has launched an investigation after some 500 puppies – 38 of them dead – were found on board a Ukraine International Airlines plane at the Toronto airport, officials said Saturday.

The surviving French bulldogs, a popular breed in Canada, were suffering from symptoms including dehydration, weakness and vomiting when they were found on the flight from Ukraine that landed at Toronto Pearson airport on 13 June, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said in a statement.

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Pandemics result from destruction of nature, say UN and WHO

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Experts call for legislation and trade deals worldwide to encourage green recovery

Pandemics such as coronavirus are the result of humanity’s destruction of nature, according to leaders at the UN, WHO and WWF International, and the world has been ignoring this stark reality for decades.

The illegal and unsustainable wildlife trade as well as the devastation of forests and other wild places were still the driving forces behind the increasing number of diseases leaping from wildlife to humans, the leaders told the Guardian.

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Diego the tortoise, father to hundreds and saviour of his species, finally retires

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Giant tortoise, whose reproductive efforts almost single-handedly saved his species, has been moved to an uninhabited island

Diego, the giant Galápagos tortoise whose tireless efforts are credited with almost single-handedly saving his once-threatened species, has been put out to pasture on his native island after decades of breeding in captivity, Ecuador’s environment minister said.

Diego was shipped out from the Galápagos national park’s breeding program on Santa Cruz to the remote and uninhabited Española.

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‘You can’t furlough an otter’: why one family-run zoo remains shut – video

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Andy Cowell runs the Fenn Bell Conservation Project in Medway, Kent. After 12 weeks of closure, as running costs mounted, zoos were suddenly told with less than a week’s notice that they could reopen on Monday to reduced visitors. But smaller zoos such as Fenn Bell have had to spend funds they barely had just to create space for visitors to visit safely, and Cowell is still a couple of weeks away from being ready. He tells Richard Sprenger why he is so angry at how the situation has been handled and fears the possibility of having to euthanise his animals 

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‘I raised hell’: how people worldwide answered the call of World Oceans Day

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From protecting fishing communities to regrowing coral reefs, Guardian readers and environmentalists share how they’re working to defend the ocean

World Oceans Day, which took place on Monday, is marked by hundreds of beach cleans and events globally. Despite Covid-19 restrictions, environmentalists and readers from around the world shared how they are continuing to work to protect the ocean, and told us about the local marine issues that matter to them.

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Surfer, 60, killed in shark attack off New South Wales, Australia

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Other surfers fought off the 10-foot fish but the victim died from his injuries soon after

A 60-year-old surfer was attacked and killed by a 3-metre (10-foot) great white shark off the coast of northern New South Wales state on Sunday, officials said.

The man received a bite to the back of his thigh and was brought to the shore by other surfers who had fought off the shark, a surf rescue group, Surf Life Saving NSW, said in a statement. The victim, from Tugun, over the state border in Queensland, received first aid on the shore, but died on the beach.

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Surfer dies after shark attack in northern New South Wales

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A 50-year-old man has died after being bitten by a shark while surfing at Casuarina Beach near Kingscliff in the NSW northern rivers region

A 50-year-old man has died after being bitten by a shark while surfing near Kingscliff in northern NSW.

A Surf Life Saving NSW spokesman told Guardian Australia the man died while surfing at Salt Beach at about 10.40am on Sunday morning.

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Cabinet unrest over U-turn on animal welfare in US trade talks

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Leaked letter instructs ministers to have ‘no specific policy’ on the issue

Downing Street has been accused of reopening the door to imports of chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef, after a leaked memo instructed ministers to have “no specific policy” on animal welfare in US trade talks.

The letter from No 10 states that the ministerial mandate for the US negotiations was “being updated to reflect” the fact that the UK was to have no policy position on animal welfare. The revelation will raise more concerns about the government’s commitment to upholding “high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards”.

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Many of the 300 plants and animals endemic to Canada at risk, report finds

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Ours to Save identified 308 species and subspecies but only 10% considered ‘globally secure’ or ‘apparently secure’

There are few animals more iconically Canadian than the moose and the beaver, and few plants more closely associated with the country than the maple leaf.

But while those species have long considered part of the nation’s ecological identity they are also found elsewhere.

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Snake eels burst through the stomach of predators in bid to escape being eaten alive

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Creatures’ attempts are in vain, and as they are unable to burrow through the fish’s ribcage, the eels become trapped in the gut of their captor

It’s no secret that nature can be brutal and violent, but a new Queensland Museum report on the death of some snake eels reads more like the plot of a horror movie than a scientific paper.

Snake eels are a family of eel species that live most of their lives burrowed in the soft sand on the floor of the ocean.

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Sixth mass extinction of wildlife accelerating, scientists warn

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Analysis shows 500 species on brink of extinction – as many as were lost over previous century

The sixth mass extinction of wildlife on Earth is accelerating, according to an analysis by scientists who warn it may be a tipping point for the collapse of civilisation.

More than 500 species of land animals were found to be on the brink of extinction and likely to be lost within 20 years. In comparison, the same number were lost over the whole of the last century. Without the human destruction of nature, even this rate of loss would have taken thousands of years, the scientists said.

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Bid for first eco-labelled bluefin tuna raises fears for protection of ‘king of fish’

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Conservationists warn the species, which was almost extinct 10 years ago, could be under threat if Japanese fishery is MSC certified

A decade ago, the highly prized “king of fish”, the bluefin tuna, was taken off menus in high-end restaurants and shunned by top chefs, amid warnings by environmentalists that it was being driven to extinction. Recent assessments of Atlantic bluefin tuna, which can grow to the size of a small car and live for up to 40 years, have shown much healthier populations.

But now conservationists and scientists are warning that the largest and most valuable tuna species could once again be under threat if a Japanese bluefin fishery in the Atlantic Ocean is awarded an internationally recognised “ecolabel” they claim is based on flawed science.

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Monkeys steal Covid-19 test samples from health worker in India

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Blood samples later recovered undamaged after fears incident could have helped spread virus

Monkeys mobbed an Indian health worker and made off with blood samples from coronavirus tests, prompting fears they could have spread the virus in the local area.

After making off with the three samples this week in Meerut, near Delhi, the monkeys scampered up nearby trees and one then tried to chew its plunder.

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‘Harrowing’ Shoalhaven zoo lion attack leaves zookeeper with serious injuries

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The zoo employee, who is in her 30s, was reportedly in critical condition and was being treated by several ambulance crews

A female zookeeper has been attacked by a lion at a zoo on the New South Wales south coast.

Emergency services were called to Shoalhaven Zoo on Friday morning after reports the woman, in her mid 30s, suffered serious face and neck injuries in the attack, a NSW Ambulance spokeswoman said.

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‘Unstoppable’: African swine fever deaths to eclipse record 2019 toll

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With world’s attention on Covid-19, warnings that lack of measures to contain pandemic could lead to culling of record number of pigs

The African swine fever (ASF) pandemic will be even worse this year than in 2019, say experts, warning that the spread of the highly contagious virus, which is fatal to pigs, is unrelenting.

With world attention on the human viral pandemic of Covid-19, concern is growing that countries are not focusing enough on halting the spread of ASF through better biosecurity practices, cooperation on intensive vaccine development, or transparency regarding outbreaks.

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Rare white grizzly bear spotted in Canada’s Rocky Mountains – video

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A rare white grizzly bear has been spotted in Canada's Rocky Mountains. According to experts, the colouring is the result of a recessive gene in the cub – not albinism.  Local wildlife officials have known about the white grizzly since 2017, but Cara Clarkson’s mobile phone video of the bear, which went viral, marks the first time the public has caught a glimpse of the predator

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Cher sheds tears of joy as Pakistan’s loneliest elephant wins freedom

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Kaavan, a 33-year-old elephant living a sorry existence in Islamabad zoo, to be released after campaign by pop icon

The plight of an animal known as Pakistan’s loneliest elephant is set to come to an end after a court declared he should be freed from Islamabad zoo – to the delight of his longtime champion, pop icon Cher.

Kaavan, a 33-year-old Asian elephant from Sri Lanka, has been the focus of a four-year campaign by Cher to secure his release from Murghazar Zoo in Pakistan’s capital, after the singer saw pictures of the elephant living alone and held miserably in chains in a small enclosure, with only a small dirty pond to play in.

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Millions of US farm animals to be culled by suffocation, drowning and shooting

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Closure of meat plants due to coronavirus means ‘depopulation’ of hens and pigs with methods experts say are inhumane, despite unprecedented demand at food banks

More than 10 million hens are estimated to have been culled due to Covid-19 related slaughterhouse shutdowns. The majority will have been smothered by a water-based foam, similar to fire-fighting foam, a method that animal welfare groups are calling “inhumane”.

The pork industry has warned that more than 10 million pigs could be culled by September for the same reason. The techniques used to cull pigs include gassing, shooting, anaesthetic overdose, or “blunt force trauma”.

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